Predator - The Banished

Chapter 10 - Samantha

Her eyelids fluttered open. She clearly wasn't in the apartment anymore. It looked like she had traveled 1,000 years into the future. 

Samantha looked around. She appeared to be in a sort of medical chamber. Tubes and sensors were hooked up to her all over. Groggily, she tried to sit up. 

"Stay still." 

A deep, menacing, techno sort of voice made Samantha freeze. She looked to her right. 

There, bending over beside her, was the shadowy figure she had seen in the graveyard.

She uttered a small cry.

"Quiet! Or else I shall kill you like I did the other," the creature said. She shut her mouth quickly. After seeing Jack murdered, she would not particularly like to experience it herself. 

"Who...what are you?" Samantha asked in a shaky voice.

"Think of me as your savior for now. You would be worse off without me," it said. "Brace yourself, this will be painful." 

"Wha-AAAAAAAAAGGGGHH!!!!"

She screamed as something sharp pierced her skin and punctured muscle. There was a sensation of something being injected into her side. But just as it began, it was over. She immediately started to feel better. Wounds closed, and her head stopped spinning. Samantha slowly sat up.

She saw the creature deposit a giant-sized needle into a chute.  

"What was that?" she asked, tears flowing freely. The figure turned around, and she stared at the silver mask looking back at her. 

"It is a healing serum used in dangerous situations," it replied, without moving. 

Samantha started to slowly peel off all the sensors attached to her, but the creature walked over and lifted her up by the scruff of the neck. It carried her through a seemingly maze of hallways and doors, until it stopped at one particular door.

With one hand, it entered a passcode of strange, red symbols, and the door opened with a hiss. There, she saw what seemed to be a bedroom, and the creature plopped her down on the giant bed, with furs covering it. 

"Stay here. Do not touch anything. Try to get some sleep," the creature said. It patted her on the top of the head, then left. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Samantha stared at her surroundings. It was rather...unnatural. There was everything that she would expect to be in a bedroom. A bed, duh, a mirror, duh, a shelf, DUH, and...a miniature sandbox attached to the wall? However, one thing stood out. 

The skulls. And hundreds of them. 

They covered the walls, each with an individual label describing what kind of creature it came from. Some of them appeared to be human. Looking closer, Samantha discovered they they were, in fact,  human. 

What kind of thing does this? she asked herself. A tracker? A stalker? No...a hunter. All of these must be trophies obtained during it's career. And most of these skulls don't look like they came from Earth...

A particularly long and wide skull was in the middle next the human ones, right above the headrest of the enormous bed caught Samantha's eye. It had mostly flat teeth, except the ones that were razor sharp at the end. Leaning in to investigate, she discovered that there was a second, smaller mouth inside of the outer one. She looked down to the label, hoping for an identification. 

It read, KIANDE AMEDHA.

There weren't any other details other than the bold letters. 

Samantha reached out to touch it, wanting to hold it in her hands, to feel it...

"Touch that, and YOUR skull will join it."

She spun around, and saw the tall, hulking "hunter" standing in the doorway. It looked angry. 

Samantha snatched her hand back toward her chest and stuttered a barely audible apology. 

"I thought I told you not to touch anything, ooman." Samantha was genuinely confused. Was that a sort of insult? She thought so. 

"I'm sorry, what exactly did you call me?" she asked. The hunter remained rooted to the spot. 

"An ooman. It means hyoo...hu...hoo...it is my species' term for yours." it replied. She noticed it struggled to pronounce, "human". This creature was clearly not human. As this thought crossed Samantha's mind, she couldn't help looking over to its huge biceps...

She suddenly found herself being forced to lay down on the bed, and a beep sounded. The mattress grew warm and started to massage her front. 

Right before her eyelids closed all the way and Samantha fell into the clutches of sleep, she glimpsed the alien hunter stalking towards the bathroom attached to the side of the bedroom.